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Keep those pitchforks raised, leaders of Oregon's organics community are telling their supporters as they await the next move toward national standards with a wary eye. Last month, Oregon organics producers and their allies across the nation sent federal regulators back to the drawing board with their efforts to develop a national rule for what can be labeled "organic." Organics supporters had been eagerly awaiting the national rule since 1990, thinking it would ease consumer confusion and promote trade by replacing the existing patchwork system of 40-some different state and private certifiers. Staff from Oregon Tilth, Oregon's main private certifier of organic foods, racked up hours and frequent-flier miles helping to lay the groundwork for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Oregon Tilth helped advise the USDA's National Organic Standards Board--a group of farmers and in-the-trenches practitioners that Congress created eight years ago--as the board hammered out a set of standards acceptable to most industry players. The USDA was supposed to base its draft on work done by the national board. When the draft came out, however, it bore little resemblance to the NOSB's version. Most horrifying to organics purists was the agency's inclusion of the "Big Three" offenders: The draft would have allowed food grown using sewage sludge, irradiation and genetically engineered organisms to be labeled "organic." Conspiracy theories proliferated about how factory agriculture interests and techno conglomerates such as Monsanto were trying to grab a piece of the organics pie. Outraged organics supporters set up information booths at health-food stores, prompting 200,000 letters of protest. On May 8, Secretary of Agriculture Dan Glickman announced that the USDA will make "fundamental changes" to its first proposal and will boot out the Big Three. The agency expects to put out a revised draft later this year. The organics community cheered, but some Oregon leaders fear that they're now in a more vulnerable position than before in fending off watered-down standards. With the Big 3 gone, organics supporters wonder whether they'll be able to rouse the same level of public outcry for the next round, which is likely to focus on more subtle technical issues that are critical to producers but lack the drama of, say, radioactive radishes or sewage sludge on your organic celery. Lynn Coody, agricultural policy director for Oregon Tilth, said the lower profile of the remaining issues, combined with a potentially shorter comment period and already-tapped budgets of pro-organics groups, could cripple the ability of organics advocates to rev up their grassroots engines. "We will not be able to generate the kind of public interest that we did before," Coody said. "It's definitely a problem unless they come out with something that's very good." Weak federal standards would hurt not only consumers but also Oregon producers who want to ship their products overseas. According to Laura Barton, an international trade manager with the Oregon Department of Agriculture, Oregonians chow down only 15 to 20 percent of what the state's organic farmers and processors crank out. The rest goes to other states and, increasingly, to Europe and Japan. Oregon Tilth is accredited by an international agency called IFOAM, which makes it easier for Tilth-certified producers to ship their goods overseas. Tilth could lose this accreditation if it is forced to accede to a weaker USDA standard. In facing these worries, Coody is cheered by the support for organics exhibited on Capitol Hill. U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio and Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont circulated letters favoring strict organic standards and garnered the signatures of 50 representatives and 31 senators, including all five Democrats from Oregon plus Sen. Gordon Smith. Smith, a Pendleton Republican who owns a huge produce-packaging plant, surprised organics advocates with his support. "I'm one of them," Smith told WW. His operations, he said, have packaged millions of pounds of organic peas and corn under the Cascadian label. Smith said he hasn't heard from conventional growers or packagers that stricter standards will hurt their business. "If it does, they ought to figure out how to do it, and compete," he said. "That's called 'America.'" It's possible, Smith said, that the USDA heard from competing commercial interests in the biotech, biosolids or irradiation fields who persuaded the agency to expand the definition too much in the initial draft. But he says the Agriculture Department assured him the next draft will cater to consumers, not outside interests. In 1973, the Oregon Legislature passed the nation's first organic labeling law. The USDA's initial proposal included a clause that prohibited the use of non-USDA organic labels. Oregon Tilth evolved in the early 1980s as a certifying agency. Anything that bears the Tilth label meets the
criteria for organic production as defined by the state. "We will not be able to generate the kind of public interest that we did before." --Lynn Coody of Oregon Tilth |
